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Macros are also inherited wholesale from C and are discouraged (if not resolutely forbidden by good style guides) in C++, so calling them part of "the problem" with C++ seems unfair.

And unless you count macros, the differences between C++ and Java in terms of "ways to write things" begin to disappear. C++ supports operator overloading and doesn't require you (mindlessly, IMHO) to place every function inside a class, but aside from that, you have many of the same options when it comes to structuring a given representation of a program.

I still wouldn't recommend it for beginners; the sheer weight of all the features and idiosyncrasies (not to mention the occasionally esoteric rules) make it a pretty substantial undertaking to use the language correctly. A good language for a beginner should allow them to focus on learning fundamental concepts, rather than forcing them to attend to countless details like always giving your base classes a virtual destructor and religiously checking buffer lengths and pointers in an attempt to avoid the nasal demons.

Having a tendency to come up with bright ideas under pressure is simply a liability in the world of street level law enforcement.

How about having a tendency to come up with stupid ideas under pressure? The problem here wouldn't be intelligence, but a lack of discipline. Strong reasoning ability doesn't imply an incapacity for working within a control structure or following orders in a crisis.

Sometimes it depends on your local police department's policies. For instance, in Ohio it is legal to carry a weapon as long as it is NOT concealed. But, if you try to do so, many police departments will arrest you and charge you with inciting a riot or some such nonsense. Or, if you get in your car with the weapon, you are then concealing it.

It is legal to carry concealed in Ohio if you have the appropriate license. Ohio, like most states, has a "shall-issue" licensing law, which requires the state to grant a license to every applicant not disqualified by a criminal conviction or the like, so this is generally not a problem.

Unconcealed carry is legal in a lot of states, and while police generally don't like it and will often do their best to discourage the practice, in most places they would be treading on thin ice legally to actually attempt to charge you with anything.

Meant to mod the parent "Insightful," but I slipped and selected "Redundant" instead. Thanks to the stupid new moderation interface, selecting an item from the listbox automatically performs moderation, so I didn't have any chance to verify my selection. >:-/

So don't mind me, I'm just posting here to remove the effect of my inadvertent moderation.:-)

SNate writes "After a grinding three-year development cycle, the OpenOffice.org team has finally squeezed out a new release. New features include support for the controversial Microsoft OOXML file format, multi-page views in Writer, and PDF import via an extension. Linux Format has an overview of the new release, asking the question: is it really worth the 3.0 label?"

richards1052 writes "The Internet Archive, whose main claim to fame is the Wayback Machine, designed to archive the internet's web history, has created a new project: the Open Content Alliance. It's purpose is to open the nation's library collections to universal web search.
A number of major library systems, including the Boston Public Library and Smithsonian, have refused to sign up with competing ventures by Microsoft and Google because they do not provide for universal access to digitized books. These commercial ventures prohibit books being accessed by competing search engines.
So far, 80 libraries and research institutions have signed on with Open Content Alliance. They must pay for the scanning of their books while Google and Microsoft offset that cost for their participating institutions."

Scott Jaschik writes "A new study explores how "digital natives" (today's college students) have changing technology habits — and how those habits have infiltrated the classroom. What does that mean for professors and their teaching methods?"

An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in nearly fifty years another mammal, specifically an aquatic mammal, has gone extinct. In this case, it was the white dolphin, also known as the Baiji, which used to live in the Yangtze River in China. The dolphin had been known to exist for the last 20 million years."

Viraptor writes, "Debian is ready to change the name of Firefox in its distributions, beginning with Etch. They say it can be done within a week. The reasons stem from Mozilla's recent insistence on trademark fidelity and its preferences regarding Firefox patches. Debian doesn't want to accept the original trademarked fox & globe logo; they don't see it as really 'free' to use. On the other hand, Mozilla doesn't want Firefox distributed under that name if it lacks the logo. Mozilla also wants Debian patches to be submitted to them before distribution, and claims that's what others (Red Hat and Novell) are already doing. But some believe development and releases will slow down if distribution-specific patches have to be checked and accepted first. We will surely see more clashes between copyright claims and 'really free' distros such as Debian. Ubuntu is also asking similar questions." No word yet what the new name will be or what the logo will look like.